


Incomprehensible Revelation

by serenbach



Series: A Scrivener's Tale [1]
Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: October Prompt Challenge, Other, ttrpg godsquad
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2020-12-01 19:10:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 25
Words: 6,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20870516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serenbach/pseuds/serenbach
Summary: Ficlet collection featuring Ona Casals, former thief and current Scrivener of Wael, her adventures before she joined the gods squad, and the romance she is currently having in the margins of their quest.





	1. Noceur - one who stays up late

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bazylia_de_Grean](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bazylia_de_Grean/gifts), [LunaRowena](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunaRowena/gifts), [rannadylin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rannadylin/gifts), [aban_ataashi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aban_ataashi/gifts).

> Ona is the character I am playing in [Bazylia_de_Grean's](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bazylia_de_Grean/pseuds/Bazylia_de_Grean) ttrpg campaign (which is great fun!). She is an incredibly curious mountain dwarf Scrivener of Wael and a former thief.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Noceur" - one who stays up late, prompted by rannadylin on tumblr.

Ona knew that she didn’t technically have to smuggle books out of the Archive. She was a Scrivener now; she was allowed to read them!

(Well, most of them.)

The one she was reading wasn’t even restricted. Sneaking it out of the Archives was just part of the fun.

It was just her, the roof of the Scrivener’s Dormitory, a lantern she had stashed up there ready for her midnight reading sessions, and a copy of _The_ _Moons of Eora _open across her knees.

Ona knew she would be tired in the morning, but it would be worth it.

How could she sleep anyway, when there was _so much_ left for her to discover?

It was a good thing she was used to staying up late. She was no stranger to skulking around on rooftops, either.


	2. Search

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Search" prompted by rannadylin on tumblr.

It felt like she had searched through the entirety of Defiance Bay already, but Ona wasn’t going to give up.

There couldn’t be _that_ many places a priest with a bruised face could go without standing out, surely? And he couldn’t have left the city already, it hadn’t been that long, she hadn’t even had the chance to wash his blood from her knuckles from where she’d punched him in the nose (just a bit!) to make him let go of his bag.

She really needed to find him. She clutched the bag with the scrolls she had stolen from him close, so she didn’t lose them. She had _so many _questions. 

Finally, she tracked him down in the _Goose and Fox_ in Copperlane, which was strange since he had definitely had no money on him when she’d mugged him, but that was not the question that was occupying her.

She just needed to _know. _

When the priest looked up from his drink and saw her standing there, wild-eyed with scrolls in hand, he grinned at her despite the fact that his face was still all swollen and gestured towards the chair next to him.

Ona had thought finding the priest would be the end of her search for answers, but it turned out to just be the first step.


	3. Wordless ways to say, “I love you:” Buying them a treat when you go out shopping

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wordless ways to say, “I love you:” Buying them a treat when you go out shopping prompted by rannadylin on tumblr.

The necklace glittered in the sunlight and drew her eye from all the way across the market.

Ona casually wove her way towards it, careful not to pay too much attention to it in case she caught the seller’s eye.

It was some sort of flower, she wouldn’t know what, and she could tell even at this distance that the inlaid “gems” were simply made of paste glass, but it was very pretty and sparkly and, most importantly, she knew that Gudlaug would love it.

Considering that it was just base metal and paste, the seller was asking an obscene amount for it, but that was not exactly something Ona was worried about.

It took very little – a cheerful smile, a cheeky wink, a friendly chat, and a touch of sleight of hand when the seller’s guard was let down, and the necklace was in her pocket.

She ambled away unhurriedly, smiling to herself.

It was easy enough to clamber through her cousin’s window (she could knock on the front door of course, but then it wouldn’t a surprise!) and she left the necklace coiled up on Gudlaug’s pillow with a folded note that said _picked you up something at the market _before sneaking out of the window again, leaving the necklace for her cousin to discover.


	4. Selcouth – unfamiliar, rare, strange and yet wonderful

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Selcouth" – unfamiliar, rare, strange and yet wonderful prompted by aban_ataashi on tumblr.

“These are the Elder Archives,” the older Scrivener said, gesturing expansively, and Ona grinned. This is what she had been waiting for.

The Scrivener laughed, seeing her face. “These are our rarest texts. You won’t be working in here.” He laughed again, not unkindly, when her expression dropped. “Not yet, anyway.”

He reached behind him and carefully pulled a scroll from the shelf and unrolled it so she could see.

“This is one of our oldest scrolls,” he told her softly as she leaned forward to see it in more detail.

The language was unfamiliar, the diagrams so strange she couldn’t even begin to tell what they were depicting, and it was _wonderful._

“I can’t read it,” she said to the Scrivener, and it wasn’t a complaint. It was a _mystery _and she couldn’t wait to get started.

The Scrivener’s eyes gleamed as he rolled the scroll back up again. “Not yet,” he said again, and Ona smiled. 


	5. Belonging

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From "Belong" on the PoETober prompt list

It was Ona’s first night in the Scrivener’s Dormitory and she couldn’t sleep.

Only part of that was due to the somewhat lumpy mattress and thin blanket. The rest was a combination of an unfamiliar location, and her mind racing from all that she had learned today.

The fact that she wasn’t used to keeping regular hours probably wasn’t helping either.

After a few hours she gave up, dressed as quietly as she could in order to not wake her roommates, and slipped out of the room.

She didn’t exactly have a plan of what to do next, but the low lamplight and the soft conversation coming from the common area decided her and she headed in that direction.

There were two other Scriveners sitting around the table, mugs and dishes in front of them. One had her head resting on her folded arms. The other was having an animated discussion, nominally with her but in actuality mostly with himself.

“Oh, you’re new!” he said as Ona entered, and she grinned back at him.

“I am, yes!” she replied. The other Scrivener mumbled some sort of greeting, muffled by her arms. 

“So back me up here,” he said, leaning forwards and looking at her very intently. “Ducks. They’re weird, right?”

“They’re not. At all,” his companion sighed tiredly.

“No, he’s right, they are,” Ona said. “They always look like they are up to something!”

The other Scrivener laughed, nudging his friend. “See, she gets it!” He pushed a bowl of cookies towards her, and Ona smiled as sat down and took one. She already felt like she belonged. 


	6. Lost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Lost" for an anonymous prompt on tumblr.

Ona was lost.

She was not particularly worried about this. In fact, she had sort of got lost on purpose.

It was always fun to see new things and meet new people, and she always got un-lost, eventually. She’d spent a lot of time studying, which she enjoyed of course, but sometimes she just needed a change.

She ambled around the unfamiliar area of the unfamiliar town, smiling at the milling people who were mostly ignoring her. She found a new bakery and loaded up on cookies, and a very dodgy stall that was almost certainly a front for something (and she would know) but sold some very nice ink, and she nabbed a ring right off the hand of a drunk man who had shouted something obscene as she walked by.

By the time she had wandered back to the parts of the town she knew, her restless feelings had mostly abated, and her mind felt clear.

Her mentor smiled at her as she joined him back at the inn. “Feeling better?”

“Much!” she replied, handing over the cookies and the ink in exchange for the scroll he offered her, and went back to studying, feeling refreshed and contented.


	7. “I have no idea what happened."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I have no idea what happened” prompted by rannadylin on tumblr.

Gudlaug’s eyes tracked over the dripping, muddy puddles that had been left all over what had been a spotlessly clean kitchen floor until about twenty minutes earlier, until she reached the source of the mess.

Ona and Ysla were standing in the middle of her kitchen, perfectly still as if that would somehow prevent her from seeing them. They were covered head to toe in mud and soaking wet.

Worst of all, they were holding her flour tin between them, and between the amount of flour coating them, and the fact that there was somehow _flour _on the _ceiling,_ there couldn’t be all that much left in the tin. 

Gudlaug crossed her arms, raising an eyebrow at them. “I have no idea what happened here –”

“I sneezed!” Ona exclaimed, tilting her head back to look at the floury ceiling in something like awe.

“We fell off a bridge!” Ysla said at the same moment, and Gudlaug couldn’t keep a straight face any longer.

She laughed, and after a moment Ona and Ysla started giggling too.

“Go on then, show me what you are hiding,” she said, and Ona fished a very pretty ring out of the flour tin and held it out for her to see, and began to recount the tale of the ring’s previous owner, a drunken noble who wasn’t _quite _as drunk as they’d thought, leading to their daring escape off the side of a bridge when he noticed their theft.

“Uh, we’ll tidy up and stuff, don’t worry,” Ona assured her, and Gudlaug gave her a hug, regardless of the fact she was a soggy mess.

“Please, have a bath first,” Gudlaug said, and Ona laughed.


	8. Wordless ways to Say I love you - Participating in their hobby even if it doesn’t personally interest you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompted our gm Bazylia_de_Grean who also helped me out with some of the details!

“Gudlaug, it’s me!” Ona yelped when Gudlaug spun around after hearing her clamber through the kitchen window, still holding her extremely sharp carving knife. “Your favourite cousin, come for a visit!”

Perhaps trying to sneak through the window of a woman who had access to several sharp knives and knew how to use them was a bad idea, but at least she had managed to successfully surprise her cousin. It had been a while since they had seen each other, although not for any bad reasons. Gudlaug was married now, and Ona was a priest. They were _grown-ups, _as weird as that sounded in her head.

Ona had missed her a lot, though. Hence, the window.

“You’re my only cousin,” Gudlaug said with a smile, putting the knife down, before she tilted her head in puzzlement. “What are you wearing?”

“Robes of course!” Ona replied, spinning around so Gudlaug could see them. “I’m a priest now, remember. Blessings, and all that,” she said, waving her hand in a vaguely priestly manner.

“I feel very blessed,” Gudlaug laughed, then shook her head. “You, a priest. When will that stop being strange?”

Ona leaned on the counter and grinned at her. “Never, I hope!”

“And did they not teach you how to go through doors normally when they were training you to be priest?” Gudlaug asked with a teasing smile.

“Where would the fun be in that?” Ona asked, watching as Gudlaug started fetching pots and pans for whatever she was cooking and setting them on the counter.

“Go on then,” Gudlaug asked, a curious gleam in her eyes. “What are they teaching you in those Archives?”

“Gudlaug, it’s _incredible _there!” Ona said, leaning forward excitedly. “There is _so much _to learn, so much I never even thought to wonder about.”

Gudlaug pushed a chopping board and a knife towards her with an encouraging gesture, as Ona chattered on about her studies. Not everything, of course. There were things she couldn’t say, even to Gudlaug, but she was never one to be short on words, especially on a subject she was interested in, even more so if there was an engaged, interested audience, and Gudlaug was very interested her stories.

She didn’t realise that she had been talking for so long until her throat started feeling all scratchy and she cleared her throat in surprise. “You were really just going to let me chatter on about scholastic feuds over Engwithan syntax for like a whole hour? You must be bored out of your mind!”

“If it interests you, then it interests me,” Gudlaug told her with a warm smile. Then her smile turned mischievous. “Besides, it tricked you into standing still and chopping all those vegetables for me without complaining.”

Ona blinked, and looked down at the chopping board and the knife in her hand, and the surprisingly neat piles of carrots and leeks in front of her that she had no memory of chopping.

“Oooh, sneaky!” Ona said admiringly, and Gudlaug laughed.


	9. Dragon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From the PoEtober prompt dragon, requested by Bazylia_de_Grean.

Ona ambled out of the shop with deliberate casualness, not wanting the shopkeeper to suspect that she had an item in her pocket worth far more then the few copper pands she had sacrificed to buy a cheap pair of earrings in order to get him to turn his back for just long enough for her to work.

Although the earrings _were_ quite nice, to be fair.

She ducked through several streets until she was sure that she hadn’t been followed, then stepped into the nearest inn. She bought a pint of ale, then sat at a table where she could see the door and examined her latest acquisition.

The necklace was deceptively simple (and not at all sparkly, which was her usual taste when it came to jewellery), though Ona had handled enough jewellery in her time to recognise that it was enchanted.

It was – according to the card in the jewellers, anyway – a genuine dragon’s tooth on a leather cord. Ona had never seen a dragon, so she couldn’t say for sure whether it was or not, but it was longer than her thumb and sharp enough to cut her thumb when she used it to measure the tooth, so maybe it was true.

For a moment, her mind was far away, picturing the dragon the tooth might have come from, when the door opened and an angry Crucible Knight came in, causing Ona to down her drink and duck out the side door before they spotted her.

But even as she was trying to make her way home as unsuspiciously as possible, her still bleeding hand was curled around the tooth hidden in her pocket, and she was thinking about dragons.


	10. Trick

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bazylia_de_Grean prompted “trick” from the OCtober prompt list (and I also borrowed one of the phrases from one of our early games sessions).

“Are you awake?” Ona whispered loudly, jabbing her sleeping mentor in the shoulder until he stirred. 

He groaned into the pillow. “Ona, what did we say about questions?”

“No questions between midnight and sunrise,” Ona recited in a sing-song voice, and then immediately added a plaintive “but…”

“And what did we say about you picking the lock to my door?”

“You said it was very impressive and made me do it another three times so you could watch.”

Even in the dark room, Ona could see him grin. “That does sound like something I’d say. But seriously, I need to sleep and so do you. A mind without sleep is like a garden without rain.”

“But what if I forget what I was going to ask!” Ona objected. “Then I would never sleep again because it would bother me forever.” 

He sighed, but Ona could tell he was more amused than anything. “Pass me my bag – without going through the pockets.”

“That was one time,” Ona said, but passed him his bag without going through the pockets.

He lit the lantern on his bedside table and rummaged in it for a moment, careful not to let her see inside. “I was going to give you this on a more memorable occasion, but here.”

He unceremoniously handed over a notebook. Ona ran her hands over it, taking in the deep purple leather cover and the smooth, high-quality paper of the pages. She felt her throat go tight before she swallowed the sudden lump in it away.

“Is this really for me?” she asked, holding it tightly as if he was going to change his mind.

He nodded, watching her carefully in the lamplight. “Now when you think of a question in the night you can just write it down. You’ll always be able to add more paper to it when you fill it up.”

“Thank you,” she said, really meaning it, then frowned. “Wait, are you only giving this to me now to trick me into leaving you alone?”

“Obviously,” he said with a laugh, blowing out the lantern. “Now go away.”

Ona laughed as well as she left him alone and locked the door behind her again. She went back to her own inn room, lit the lantern, dug a pen out of her bag, and started to write. 


	11. Tide

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Bazylia_de_Grean who requested tide from the PoEtober prompt list.

Low tide in Ondra’s Gift was always fun, and usually pretty good for business too.

For one thing, there were always sailors too drunk (or, uh, otherwise distracted) to notice when their coin purses suddenly got lighter, or their rings unexpectedly disappearing from their fingers.

There was also the Shallows to explore at low tide, if you didn’t mind getting a bit wet and sandy (and Ona didn’t, not in the face of treasure-hunting!) and she had found all sort of interesting things.

Well, she had mostly found a bunch of single shoes (seriously, how did so many people lose just _one_ shoe?) but once she found a crate full of Aedyran silks, perfectly waterproofed and gorgeously shiny, clearly hidden by an unlucky sailor to try and retrieve later. With all the odd scraps of jewellery, cast away weaponry, and the occasional bit of lost cargo to poke through, there was always something interesting to find.

High tide was fun too. There was something exciting about watching the ships coming in and out of the docks and the sailors bustling around doing sailor-y things. Sometimes she and Ysla would find somewhere to hide and watch, making up ridiculous, scandalous stories of where the ships had been and what the sailors were doing.

Sometimes though, if Ona was watching the docks alone, she would try and remember the last (and only) time she had been on a ship - the endless, endless, blue - and resist the urge to stow herself away on board, and have an adventure somewhere far away.


	12. History

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Bazylia_de_Grean from the PoEtober pompt list.

“What can you tell me about this?” her mentor asked, dropping a necklace into her hand.

“Do you want to know how much you could get for it on the black market?” Ona asked, examining it closely.

He laughed. “Maybe later. Tell me what else you notice.”

She turned it over in her hands, running the length of it through her fingers. It was a pretty thing, but kind of simple. The beads on the necklace alternated between green glass and clay that had probably once been blue but had faded over time. Some of the beads were cracked. The pendant was formed from a green glass stone, polished smooth, held in an cage of cleverly twisted bronze.

“It’s old,” she said, thinking aloud, and he nodded encouragingly. “Really old, maybe even… Engwithan? The brass looks right for that, even if the rest of it is pretty simple. It’s not enchanted or anything. If you did want to sell it you would have better luck approaching a scholar than a pawn shop.”

“Very good,” her mentor replied. “Now look closer. What else do you see?”

She lifted it close to her face and looked at it again, carefully, and smiled when she saw it, the answer clicking as smoothly in her mind as her pick in a lock. “The beads are different sizes and some are thicker than the others. Some of the clay ones have visible fingerprints on them even under the glaze.”

He smiled. “And this tells us…?”

“The necklace was probably a practice piece by an apprentice, or at least an amateur copy of a fancy necklace that the maker had seen somewhere,” Ona said, carefully pressing her finger against one of the ancient fingerprints in fascination. “It’s not made by a master or anything.”

“Very good!“ her mentor said approvingly, and Ona laughed.

“It’s funny to think that all those years ago, the person who made that necklace sat talking with her teacher just like I am now.”

“That’s what history is,” he said, taking the necklace back and stowing it in one of the many intriguing pockets in his bag. “People, and their stories, and how we tell them.”

“When I was in school we just learned a bunch of dates in our history class,” Ona told him, scrunching her nose up at the memory. “This is much better!”

He shook his head with a sigh. “Well, that sounds boring.“

“It really was,” Ona agreed. “Hey, where did you get that necklace from anyway?”

Her mentor laughed. “A story for another time, I think.”

“You always say that just when things are getting good!” Ona complained.

He grinned at her. “I need to keep you interested somehow!”


	13. Stars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bazylia_de_Grean prompted "stars" from the OCtober prompt list.

Ona had always loved looking at the stars, long before she learned the actual names of the constellations.

Back then, she had just made up her own constellations, stories to entertain her friends (though mostly herself), pretended to be able to tell the future from the stars to make people laugh.

Now that she _did_ know the names of the constellations… she still made up stories for fun.

“There’s no way there’s a constellation called the hairy antelope!” one of her fellow scriveners said with a laugh. A few of them were sat around the table in the common area, relaxing after their day in the Archives. “I don’t believe that for a second!”

“It’s true, I promise!” Ona said with a grin, pouring herself some more wine before passing the bottle on.

“The crown, maybe,” he said, shaking his head while he took the bottle. “The scythe, possibly. But the hairy antelope, not a chance.”

“No, there really is!” another scrivener chimed in, nudging her. “I think it’s the Ixamitl name or something.”

“I’m just going to look it up tomorrow,” he said, laughing. “Then you’ll owe me a drink!” 

“We’ll see,” Ona replied, smiling at him. “You might end up owing me one!”

Later, after the wine was all gone and everyone else had gone to bed, Ona climbed out of the window and up onto the roof. Above her, the night sky was full of stars, twinkling down at her like thousands of laughing eyes.

Ona winked back at them, smiling.


	14. "That's not how you do that!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "That's not how you do that!" domesticity prompt from rannadylin.

Ona pulled a face when the drawer in her bedroom got stuck when she tried to pull it out.

She’d only had a room in the Scrivener’s Dormitory for not even a full day, she probably didn’t want to get a reputation for breaking stuff, not this soon, anyway.

“No, that’s not how you do that,” a voice came from behind her, and her roommate reached over her shoulder and banged her fist against the top of the cabinet, making the drawer pop out.

“Nicely done,” Ona said, turning to her with a smile. “I might have been there for a while.”

“You get used to it! Come on, let me show you around,” her roommate said cheerfully. “I can show you were they hide the extra pillows and stash all the good snacks that we aren’t supposed to know about.”

“Ooh, sounds fun!” Ona said, grabbing her favourite pen out of the drawer and putting it in her pocket before following her out. She could tell that she was going to like having a roommate.


	15. Illusion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Illusion" prompted by Bezylia_de_Grean!

Ona doesn’t need magic to work an illusion.

She can do it with a smile to hide her intention and a laugh to disguise the movement of her hands. She doesn’t need to turn invisible when she knows the city well enough to disappear in it.

And she can definitely make treasure appear in her hands as if from nowhere!

Ona doesn’t need magic.

Sometimes she thinks it might be fun, though. 


	16. Something About (Him)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Something about (him)" prompted by Bazylia_de_Grean

He wasn’t like anyone she had met before, and that was interesting in itself! He was full of smiles and secrets, and had a mind like a maze she wouldn’t mind getting lost in.

Yeah, there was definitely something about him. Ona couldn’t wait to see him again. 


	17. Sunbathing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Sunbathing" prompted by Bazylia_de_Grean

Something that Ona had noticed is that people never really tended to look up.

She’d been on the roof for like an hour now, and no-one had noticed her, and it was _daytime. _She wasn’t even trying to hide!

It was kind of boring, just watching a house, waiting for the occupant to leave before she could go in. At least it was a nice day.

She pushed her sleeves up and turned her face up to the sun with a smile. No-one had said she couldn’t spend the waiting time sunbathing!


	18. Shimmer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Shimmer" prompted by Bazylia_de_Grean

It shimmered in her hand, sometimes glittering, sometimes almost not there, just substantial enough to hold.

Ona wasn’t _exactly_ sure how it worked - clearly not quite the normal way - but she was sure she could figure it out! It was a fun little mystery to think about while they were walking. 

But it was pretty and sparkly and magical, all of which were some of her most favourite things.

Plus, it was a present, which made it even more special! Just thinking about it was enough to make her smile. 


	19. brushing a kiss along the shell of the of the other person’s ear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kiss meme prompt by Bazylia_de_Grean

Ona had never spent all that much time thinking about her ears.

She had, uh, _acquired _a pretty impressive collection of earrings over the years, but as for her actual ears, she had never given them a second thought.

Turns out that was a huge oversight. Her ears were _sensitive. _When Kauri had brushed his lips against the edge of her ear, she had felt it in her whole body somehow, like a shiver, but _good_.

(And that had just been a dream – what would it feel like in person? That question ended up occupying a lot of her thoughts, both sleeping and awake.)

She was still thinking about it the next day, even as she talked with her friends over dinner about whether their tea-dreams were really real or some sort of illusion.

Reality was just a matter of perspective, Ona knew. But as she touched her ear as they talked, the echo of sensation still lingering, it felt like one of the realest things that had ever happened to her.


	20. Throwing their arms around the other person’s neck, hugging them close before kissing them passionately

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kiss meme prompt by Bazylia_de_Grean

It was kind of fun only having a short time with Kauri, the same sort of thrill as picking someone’s pocket when the Guard was _right there _and could turn around at any moment.

(Especially since Ona wasn’t _entirely_ convinced that her boss was as put off by all those romance-y things as They’d said!)

She’d thrown her arms around Kauri's shoulders when he had tugged her towards him - the magic dream charcoal clutched tightly in her hand so she didn’t lose it - and used her grip on his shoulders to pull herself as close as possible. It turned out that even sitting he was a little taller than her, which was definitely a thing to think about later.

Ona had kissed him back eagerly. It felt different this time. It was an _anticipated _kiss and it had left her breathless.

(And she was still dreaming! How did that even work?).

Yeah, she’d definitely been kind of distracted. Still was, really. Especially now she had the charcoal to play with, and some good memories to take with her when the dream ended.

Ona was smiling when their moment ended and she’d been pulled out of the dream, and she was still smiling when she woke up in her bedroll.


	21. in dreams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "in dreams" prompt by Bazylia_de_Grean

It wasn’t exactly a normal way to get to know someone, but perhaps that was part of the reason why Ona was enjoying herself so much.

Falling into Kauri’s dream cabin, drinking, talking, kissing – she was having the _best _time!

And if it was that much fun in dreams, what was it going to be like in real life?

Yeah, she was thinking about that a _lot. _


	22. Defy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Defy" prompted by aban_ataashi on tumblr.

Ona watched her grandma blink once, before going back to pouring the tea, her expression deliberately calm.

“You’re going to be a priest?” she asked, raising her eyebrow.

“Yup!” Ona replied, taking the cup that her grandma handed her.

“Of _Wael_?” her grandma confirmed, still calm.

“Yup!”

“And you decided this…?”

“About half an hour ago, yeah,” Ona told her, blowing on her tea.

He grandma _looked _at her for a long moment.

“Are you in trouble?” she asked, eventually. “I told you _not_ to take on work from Trefor.”

“I mean, no more trouble than usual,” Ona laughed. “Though I guess he won’t be happy that I’ve bailed on him.”

“Don’t worry about that,” her grandma assured her, her voice deceptively even. “But I can’t help but notice that you’ve got blood on your knuckles.”

Ona looked down at her hand in surprise. “Oh, that’s not mine! It’s Mathis’.”

“And Mathis is… the priest you mugged?”

“Yup!” Ona said again.

“So, let me see if I’ve got this right. You mugged a priest, read some scrolls, and now you want to turn your whole life upside down and follow _Wael_?”

Ona laughed, then sipped her tea. “Yeah, that sums it all up.”

“I thought you wanted to be more hands on with the business,” her grandma asked, watching her carefully. “Go out on the road, meet some contacts. You can’t do that if you’re a priest.”

“I did want that!” Ona said. “More than anything. But now…”

She trailed off. Reading those scrolls felt like the time she was climbing the trellis outside some fancy house when it snapped underneath her, but instead of falling _down_ she was falling _up_ and _out_.

She felt like she was still falling, kind of, further and further away, never slowing down.

“There’s so much out there,” she said in the end. “So much that I don’t know. So much I’ve never even thought of. So much I can find. I _have _to do this, grandma. I have to go.”

Her grandma shook her head. “This defies all reason and common sense.” Then she laughed, her sudden grin as mischievous as Ona’s. “Which makes it perfect for you!” 

“I knew you’d get it!” Ona said, grinning back at her.


	23. Elder - compassion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Elder (compassion)" from the flower meaning list on tumblr, prompted by Rannadylin!

It would be fun showing Idalia around Defiance Bay!

Sure, she’d been there before, but Ona was willing to bet that she didn’t get a chance to explore much of the city before they all left on their journey.

Maybe she would start by showing Dal the Archives, the parts that the public were allowed in, anyway. If nothing else, they were quiet and calm and Ona was pretty sure that Dal could probably do with a bit of that after their journey!

And then the marketplace, where there would be different foods from all over Eora to try, and lots of new clothes and jewellery to admire. And maybe the ruins in First Fires – Dal might find it fun to see some ruins that weren’t underground! And they could take a walk in Heritage Hill, looking at the pretty gardens and the terrible fashion choices of the snobby rich people who lived there. And of course, the docks at Ondra’s Gift! It was always fun to watch the ships coming in and out even if you weren’t looking to hire one. 

Then maybe they could go for a drink – though not in any of Ona’s favourite places, Dal would probably be a bit overwhelmed by those – or something to eat somewhere in the city, something a bit different that Dal maybe hadn’t tried before. 

And of course, she would introduce Idalia to her grandma! Dal would probably enjoy having access to a kitchen and her grandma would like the company of someone who wouldn’t accidentally set the kitchen on fire a little bit. And she knew that her grandma would look out for Dal if Ona had to leave before they found her a ship to Ixamitl. 

Yeah, she would make sure that Dal had fun in Defiance Bay, enough fun to put all the bad stuff behind her. And maybe, far away from her god trying to hustle her into obedience and the expectations from (most of) her unexpected family, Idalia might discover for herself exactly what it is that she wants to do next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ona definitely had a List Of Things To Do With Dal when the idea of Dal travelling back to the city with her came up!


	24. Witch Hazel and Impatiens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aban-ataashi prompted witch hazel (a spell) and impatiens (impatience) from the flower prompt list on tumblr!

“Can I ask you something?” Ona said.

Mathis laughed. “You haven’t stopped asking questions for the last two days, but go ahead.”

“Yeah that’s fair,” Ona said, laughing too. “But why haven’t you fixed your nose? I thought priests could just –” she vaguely waggled her fingers “– you know?”

“It hasn’t been bothering me,” Mathis told her. “But I can, if you like.”

He closed his eyes and concentrated. There was a brief flash of white light and then Mathis’ nose – which, although not broken, had still been pretty swollen – was back to normal, like she had never punched him in it.

Ona watched; eyes wide. “That was really magic,” she said, amazed.

“That was really magic,” Mathis agreed with a smile.

“Can you teach _me_ magic?” Ona asked eagerly, so excited that she could barely sit still.

“I will,” Mathis assured her. “But you are just on the first steps of your journey! You don’t want to rush to the end, do you?” He laughed at the dismayed face she pulled, not unkindly. “Well, alright. Maybe we can skip ahead a couple of steps.”

“You’re the best, Mathis!” Ona said, grinning widely.


	25. singing badly as loud as you can

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "singing badly as loudly as you can" prompted by rannadylin and LunaRowena on tumblr!

“For the record,” Grim said dryly, “this is a terrible plan.”

“You say that about all my plans for some reason,” Ona replied with an easy laugh.

“The reason is that they are all bad,” Grim sighed. “We could just steal the shipment and be done with it, without all the dramatics.”

“Yeah, but this way is much more entertaining,” Ysla said with a sharp grin, nudging him on the hip, and Grim sighed again, but in a way that meant he had given up protesting. Ona stifled a grin. Those two were so obvious and they still had no idea!

“We’ll meet you back here when we’re done being the distraction!” Ona said to Grim. “You remember what we’re looking for?”

Grim gave her a _look _but didn’t reply as he melted away into the shadows. Ysla grinned over at Ona. “You ready?”

Ona laughed, bouncing on her toes, ready to go. “Of course, it’s going to be fun! Let’s do this!”

They slipped silently through the streets of Ondra’s Gift, avoiding all the other thieves who were lurking around, until they could see the hand-off area they’d been told about by some super shady guy acting on behalf of a Lord who didn’t want his name known by a bunch of thieves. They stopped just far enough away so they wouldn’t be spotted, peeking around the corner.

There was one figure, hooded and cloaked, already waiting, shifting their weight from foot to foot, as if they were impatient, or anxious.

“Can you see the other guy?” Ona whispered directly into Ysla’s ear, and Ysla jerked her head to the side, her ears twitching, and a second hooded figure came into view.

They waited, poised, until the second figure had almost reached the first, and then Ona reached out and linked arms with Ysla and together they nosily swayed, stumbled, stomped and scuffled their way towards them, as if they had spent the night drinking at the _Salty Mast_.

As the two cloaked heads spun around, and their hands dipped towards their blades, Ona took a deep breath, and bellowed at the top of her voice, focusing more on volume then tunefulness:

“THE SEA BEHELD HER LOVE, SHINING DOWN FROM ON HIGH!”

The two figures paused, their hands dropping away from their weapons, but still regarding them warily.

“SHE BAADE HIM COME DOWN FROM HIS PLACE IN THE SKY!” Ysla screeched-sang at her side, and Ona laughed in the most drunken, obnoxious way she could manage.

(She may have had _some_ practice at that!)

“It’s palace, not place! Hey,” Ona yelled across to them, “tell her it’s palace, not place!”

One of the figures ducked down and picked up an empty, discarded rum bottle and hurled it at them. They both ducked out of the way slightly too nimbly for drunks, but neither of the figures seemed to notice.

“Get out of here, useless bloody drunks!” One of them yelled back at them.

Neither of them seemed to notice the slight dark shadow appear silently behind them and then disappear again in less than a couple of heartbeats.

“Aw, they don’t like our singing!” Ona said, her voice slurring but still loud, “we should find some _fun _people who will sing with us!”

“Yeah, we should find someone who _depreciates_ our singing!” Ysla shouted at them, though Ona could hear the laughter underneath her feigned drunken anger. They staggered away, still singing loudly, but not so loudly that they didn’t hear the sudden outraged yelling from behind them a few moments later.

Ona and Ysla stopped stumbling, unlinked their arms and started running at the same moment, Ona laughing for real as they did. As the footsteps behind them grew closer, they split up, and individually made their way back to Ona’s family’s warehouse in a deliberately winding manner to lose any pursuit, something they had done many times before.

By the time Ona got there, Ysla and Grim were already waiting. Ysla shifted over on the bench, away from Grim, so Ona could sit down with them. She raised her eyebrow pointedly at Ysla as she did, who just as pointedly ignored it.

“Where have you been?” Grim scowled at her. 

“Took a few extra turns before I lost them,” Ona replied easily. “Did you get the… whatever it was?”

Grim pulled a palm-sized silver box out of his pocket and tossed it over to her. Ona turned it over in her hands. It was plain, though extremely shiny, undecorated aside from a tiny crest engraved around the lock.

“Whose crest is that, anyway?” Ona asked, and Grim shrugged. “I wonder what’s inside?”

“Who cares? Let’s just hand it over so we get paid.” Grim said, snatching it back.

“Or,” Ysla said, leaning over to take it out Grim’s hands. “We figure out what it is and who wants it and charge double.”

Grim sighed. “This is another terrible plan, just so everyone knows.”

“Aw, come on Grim, it’ll be fun!” Ona said, already digging her lockpicks out of her pocket.

Grim sighed again but bent to help Ona with the lock.

**Author's Note:**

> "Incomprehensible Revelation" is the name of the Wael specific priest talent in the first Pillars game.


End file.
